


Figment

by lizthefangirl



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bellarke, Canon Compliant, Canon Divergent, F/M, Josephine Lightbourne Possessing Clarke Griffin, Minor Violence, Season/Series 6 Speculation, Spec, Speculation, The 100 (TV) Season 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-03-30 20:02:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19034665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizthefangirl/pseuds/lizthefangirl
Summary: Post 6.05. Bellamy must tread carefully as he faces Josephine, especially when he discovers that she knows precisely where to strike him.





	Figment

Bellamy had been plagued by nightmares for most of his life. 

When he was on the Ark after Praimfaya, they were unrelenting for months on end. Ridden with the shame of leaving his people, his world; but worse, always worse—leaving her. He’d seen her writhing in agony from radiation, tearing at her burning flesh, or crumpled on the ground with sightless eyes, already gone. Yet the dreams where she was alive and well, radiant and golden, were often the ones that drove him onto his hands and knees in the middle of the night, losing his meager dinner.

This was not a nightmare. The horror of it was beyond any he'd known. 

Her mouth twisted in a knowing smirk as she approached him. Clarke and  _not_ Clarke—this Josephine, this  _other_ , who took her body from her.

Who took her from all of them. From _him_. Again.

He'd gotten her back. She was back with him, by his side, and now—

Her shrewd smile grew as she casually wiped her dagger on her sleeve. He'd yet to use the spear he'd taken off a guard. It wasn't an ideal choice of weapon; he hadn't been able to gather any of the paralytic darts. From what he'd heard of the chaos outside, they were in low supply. 

That, or people simply weren’t opting to use them at all.

"I've been looking forward to this," Josephine said, ever prim. He hated the way her lilting voice was pitched just higher, dripping with condescension.

"You're not killing anyone else."

"No?" She prodded at one of the bodies with a foot. "Procreation is a powerful thing. We'll compensate."

His nostrils flared at her tone. "You're insane to treat human lives this way, you know that?"

"The Mountain Men were still men, no? Clarke made her peace with it."

He gaped. She dropped a wink.

What had Priya said to Jordan?

_She wants you to know she’s happy._

“Clarke’s alive,” he breathed. The déjà vu invoked by the statement struck him dumb.

“Oh no, she’s quite dead. But there are occasional bursts of memory, emotions. It’s extremely annoying.”

"We did nothing to threaten you," he countered, unwilling to linger on this. "Nothing. And these people are right to revolt. What you’re trying to do is _genocide_ , Josephine."

"So the alternative would be what, exactly? Some of my so-called 'people' might see fit to eliminate all the Nightbloods.” She held up a hand—a long, blackened cut lining her wrist. "You won't hurt me, Bellamy. Not in a million years."

"You're not her. And I'll do what it takes to save innocent people."

She just grinned. "Clarke's mind. . . So much about you in here. So little said." Josephine clucked her tongue. "She regretted that, in the end. Your face was one of the last she thought of, you know."

His knuckles went white around the spear's shaft. "You can choose differently, here. You don't have to do this—you can change everything. Choose others over yourself."

She let her features and voice soften slightly—more like Clarke's normally were, though her eyes didn't lose their lethal glint. "It's who I am, Bellamy—"

"You're _nothing_ ," he snarled. "You don't deserve to use her voice or her body. You’ve had your life— _all_ of you have! You don't get to take someone else's, like some kind of god!"

"You're kinda cute when you're pissed," she crooned, prowling closer. "Cute to begin with, actually. Though I still prefer John. . ."

He spun the spear blindingly fast—letting it fill the space between them, the tip aimed just below her collarbone.

She rolled her eyes. "Come on. She couldn't pull the trigger on you in the bunker—though there was the fighting pit. . . Still. You definitely can't impale her."

He thrust his arm forward, applied just enough pressure to break skin, an inky bead forming. He fought back bile at her low, raspy laugh. 

"You know what would have happened if you'd been together on the Ark, right?" Her brows lifted delicately.

"Keep it up," he panned. "You're not leaving this room."

"I thought about that a lot after Praimfaya," she murmured, the pronoun change making him grit his teeth, as her demeanor shifted once more, more Clarke than Josephine. "Sometimes before sleeping, I—"

“She was dead to me. Wrong approach."

"What if I hadn't been?" she asked. "What if you'd known I was alive? Would you have waited for me?"

 _Use your damned_ head, _Blake._

"You're a ghost, Josephine,” he whispered. “A virus. You can be removed."

She smiled blandly. It took him a moment to realize she was leaning into the spear—

"That makes Clarke a corpse, then."

He cursed, swinging the spear down towards her hand. She didn’t try to dodge him. Didn’t even attack.

Her own blade was suddenly slicing across her upper arm, clean through her jacket, black blood coating it like oil.

He shouted in alarm, but she barely flinched at the wound. “Here’s the thing, Bellamy,” she said, as flippantly as one might mention the weather. “Your people have a pretty good number of hosts in cryo. _More_ than enough for us. So this body is rather disposable, now. I might mark it up a little before I’m done, because you’ve really been an ass.”

“Stop,” he said, a hoarse command.

Josephine had lifted her shirt, exposing her abdomen.

She never broke his gaze as she began to cut, _deep_ —

“ _Stop!_ Please!”

“Let me pass,” she said sweetly, “And stay out of my way.”

"Please stop this," he strained. The spear clattered to the palace floor. "Please, Josephine. This isn't how life is supposed to be."

“Life without death?” The cut was just below her navel, some six inches long. “That sounds good to me.”

He was trembling all over, hot tears on his face as he beheld the ghastly lesion. “It’s not without death, you psychotic bitch. Not at all.”

"She never did tell you how she loved you."

Bellamy barked a humorless laugh, his voice too raspy. "Didn't need to. She's family."

"Oh come on. You can't be that dim."

He knew what was coming as her expression lost its venom, her smile turning warm. Turning into her own. It was too much, too much— 

"Heart and head, remember?"

It was a physical blow. It was his chest being wrenched open. "Shut up."

She stepped forward, eyes shining, and suddenly he felt like the spearhead was piercing his own chest. "I love all of you, Bellamy. I should have told you."

" _Shut the hell up!"_ It came out as a growl.

He couldn’t stop shaking, but he didn’t move away. Didn’t reach for a weapon.

A glint of triumph in her eyes, now, though her voice was still feather soft. “It should have been us.”

He was holding his breath as she reached up— _not her_ —but still, her hand. The same one he’d gripped in Polis, as the Flame had hijacked her head. Clarke’s thumb swept at his damp cheek, her fingers still streaked in black.

How many times had he dreamt of her touching him like this? Looking at him like this?

His face crumpled. He leaned into her hand. “I’m so sorry, Clarke,” he gasped. “ _I’m so sorry_.”

Josephine was smiling, hardened once more, mere inches away. The edge of her blade was cool and wet beneath his jaw, then suddenly warm as his skin split. “You’re a fool,” she said.

“I am,” he agreed quietly.

Then he gripped her waist and pulled her to him, ignoring the searing wound in his neck as his mouth crushed against hers.

She was stunned for a moment—a solid moment, before he felt her smile and deepen the kiss—relishing in her control over him.

In her response was she the least like Clarke. He didn’t think about her mouth, her body—just the violent way she reacted, the dagger tracing lightly down his throat, making him hiss. The kiss was teeth and tongue and power. And absolutely numb.

She broke away first to breathe, and he jerked his head back, pressing the bright green leaf over her mouth and nose, his leg hooked between hers to anchor her in place. Not chloroform, but the Sanctum equivalent, a similar species to where the darts’ serum derived from.

He had taken the antidote around an hour ago.

He still held his breath as she writhed and buckled, her eyes blown wide, utterly furious. He stared back, mouth swollen, the salt-and-metal taste of blood on his lower lip, trapping her wrists against her chest with his free hand. Until those blue eyes rolled upward and finally fluttered closed.

The original plan had been downright ridiculous—to try and rip into the precise spot on the back of her neck with a scalpel, and dig the Mind Drive out. Even when he practiced it with Emori and Echo, learning how to aim as they bucked and writhed in a reverse self-defense lesson, he couldn’t hold either still enough. And he couldn’t know what would happen if he somehow damaged the Drive.

If he could even bring Clarke back at all.

As far as the others were aware, neither that plan or this one included a kiss.

He’d known, though, even then, that it was a real possibility. That it was one of the only ways to shock Josephine, if only for an instant; she would be drunken with dominance. It had just so happened that she had chosen the “heart” route in trying to disarm him. So he’d braced himself as best he could, thinking of anything and everything she might say.

He hadn’t anticipated that she’d have access to Clarke’s memories—their memories.

His chest was heaving as he sank to the floor with her limp and flushed in his arms. Another nightmare come alive.

He needed to get her to the lab. His head swam slightly, possibly from the tranquilizer. Unconscious, there was no sign of the monster holding her body hostage. Just Clarke.

“Please, please be in there,” he whispered, fresh tears muddling his vision. He brushed her hair from her brow. “Clarke, I need you to come back to me. I need you here, Princess.”

He pressed his lips to her forehead and steeled himself with a deep, rattling breath. Her blood coated his hands as he held fast to her and rose.

He’d gotten her back after Mount Weather. After she was Wanheda. After the Flame. The City of Light. He’d gotten her back after Praimfaya. After Earth burned for good. After the long sleep.

He would get her back. And no one in the universe would take her again.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm kind of thrilled by this season and storyline so far. I hope this helps over the hiatus! Comments are smiles. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, and happy Blarke-ing. - Liz.x
> 
> P.S. I feel like Boo Boo the Fool for hoping for these jokers to get together at this point but here I am, you know?


End file.
